She’s Still a . . .Baby Ballerina : At 73, Tatiana Riabouchinska is keeping her ballet students on their toes

“So, Mme. Riabouchinska, do you think you’ll ever outgrow being called a baby ballerina?”

The question caused Tatiana Riabouchinska-Lichine, 73, to toss back her head and uproariously giggle. As she strained--unsuccessfully--to stop, her platinum blonde hair twitched until it seemed as if her beaming round face were ringed by a halo.

There are those in the dance world who would say Riabouchinska has been blessed. Born on the eve of the Russian Revolution in Moscow, she began life precariously as a premature infant whose family had to dodge insurgents’ bullets in their home. Her family escaped to the south of France in 1917 with a small cache of jewels.

In time, Riabouchinska became one of the world’s most celebrated dancers--one of George Balanchine’s “baby ballerinas” in the Wassily de Basil Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, a teen-ager with astonishing virtuosic skills.

At present, Riabouchinska spends her days managing her Lichine Ballet Academy in Beverly Hills and teaching a morning class--she calls it her “mother’s class”--that is among the best-kept secrets of experienced dancers and celebrities who yearn for an Old-World atmosphere. Cyd Charisse, Alexander Godunov, Paula Prentiss, Leslie Caron and Liliane Montevecchi--among others--practice there.

If Riabouchinska can make people feel the excitement of an era past, it is because vital details of the great roles she once assumed still live in her body. Robert Joffrey, the late director of the Joffrey Ballet, knew this. And when he made the decision to revive Balanchine’s “Cotillon”--a so-called lost ballet choreographed in 1932 for the de Basil Ballets Russes--Joffrey relied on Riabouchinska for help.

The Joffrey Ballet opens its spring season (Tuesday to June 4) at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with the Los Angeles premiere of “Cotillon.” The part of the Mistress of Ceremonies is danced in alternating casts by Leslie Carothers and Deborah Dawn. Both women have been coached by Riabouchinska, for the role of Mistress of Ceremonies was originally hers.

She was only 15 when Balanchine picked her to dance in the company. He affectionately dubbed her, along with Tamara Toumanova and Irina Barnova, both 13, one of his baby ballerinas. Their youth and apparent vulnerability increased the poignancy of “Cotillon,” a plotless ballet set in a ballroom where gaiety masks a feeling of certain death.

“We were all crazy in love with Balanchine,” Riabouchinska said. She recalled glorious times in the company, traveling around the world with her mother in tow.

She and the other baby ballerinas would jump off a piano and land on their toes in pointe shoes for the sheer thrill of it. Then there was her first trip to the United States when she discovered the drugstores that served sundaes--unthinkable in France--and ate seven in a row.

Balanchine first spotted Riabouchinska in “Diana Hunts the Stag” in London in 1928. She was capable of technical feats practically unheard of for girls, or even boys: Riabouchinska whipped off triple turns in the air and as many as eight leg-beats in a single jump. But Balanchine’s autobiographer Bernard Taper said Balanchine visualized her in his choreography not because of her stunts of elevation, but because she seemed completely unconscious of her abilities.

“I was like a little boy, a tomboy,” she said. “I just adored ballet, and nobody had to force me.” Writing of her dancing several years later, critic Edwin Denby said: “She strikes you as dancing her whole number on an impulse, spontaneously, for the joy of it.”

At the de Basil Ballets Russes, Balanchine choreographed “Cotillon” in 13 days. It was a tremendous success, but was dropped from the company’s repertoire in 1946 and--until the Joffrey’s staging by reconstructionists Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer in 1988--was believed to be forever lost.

Riabouchinska admits that recalling the escapades is easier than remembering the steps of “Cotillon.” For that, she needs the music. As with most dancers, her memory of choreography is stored in the muscles.

“We wore beautiful ball gowns. Mine had music notation on it,” Riabouchinska said. “Balanchine explained to us that the ballet was about lost innocence.”

“Balanchine used to rehearse us in ‘Cotillon’ and say we should dance until our eyes popped out. We’d do anything he’d tell us because when somebody is so talented, you don’t mind,” Riabouchinska said.

She added sternly that her main concern about the Joffrey dancers is that they animate the emotional spirit of “Cotillon.” “The dancers today think that everything is about the perfection of fifth position, or in how many pirouettes they can do. We had fun, but they have just hard work.”

In Los Angeles, Riabouchinska has brought her passion to bear on any number of young dancers who have gone on to professional careers. Although she rarely teaches children anymore (because “they climb all over me”), former students on the Los Angeles dance scene are reflecting her knowledge.

Victoria Koenig, artistic director of the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet, credits Riabouchinska with teaching her to have faith in herself: “I arrived at Tania’s very down, but she just lights up when she moves. In her tennis shoes, she has that spark. She imbues you with the idea that you can do it, and that’s been very important.”

Koenig’s first professional experience was in the Ballet Society of Los Angeles, one of three companies that Riabouchinska has launched and closed, sometimes with her late husband, David Lichine, since moving to Beverly Hills in 1943. A fourth company that is an offshoot of Riabouchinska’s last company, Southern California Ballet, is just getting started under the direction of Helena Ross.

“She’s sort of entrusted me to re-create her company, offering me her storage of costumes so we can do Lichine’s ballets and keep some of the Ballets Russes repertory active,” said Ross, 18, who still studies with Riabouchinska and is one of the Long Beach Ballet’s most breathtaking guest performers.

Ross directs the Southern California Ballet of the Sun, an unusual mix of inner-city street gang members, serious ballet students and professionals. They made their debut in June with an excerpt of “The Sleeping Beauty.”

“I stick with Tania because her studio is less of a commercial studio. It’s where you can be yourself,” Ross said.

In the studio, Riabouchinska sat with her sneakered feet crossed in a shaft of fading sunlight.

She explained how she recently ran her “mother’s class” through a Michael Jackson-inspired routine. “That gave my students a surprise. But the point is, it keeps me alive. Dancing keeps me from having to walk with a stick. I know that if I spent my days in my garden with my eight cats, two dogs and three wonderful grandchildren, I’d be with a stick now.

“You see, the trouble is, I am still a baby ballerina.” And the blonde halo trembled with mirth.